Do any of you decorate journal pages?

[FuzzyHedgepig]

Not necessarily Instagram level decorated, but any decoration that you add at all. If you do, how do you go about it? Do you decorate the pages before you start them? As you go along? Is it random or do you try to keep it relevant to what's on that page?

 

I have stickers and washi tape and a long list of "oh I could doodle or buy stamps or stencils or this or that" but it never feels very natural to me. 

[mhguda]

It's grown into a Zentangle-like band at the top of each page, with a few elements that lend themselves to such a small stage. I do it as I go along, so as I reach, say, page 54 and 55, I draw in the band, box the page number (that I added when I was testing the paper, so sometimes quite some time before!), and sometimes as I write I may add small additional doodles at random places on the current page.

It is restful.

[ASCIIaardvark]

In my diary, I put the date in a ribbon/banner. I started with this style, but lately I've been winding the edges so I have more horizontal space for larger title-text.

 

At the start of the month, I make a cover-page. Here's an elaborate example. This is mostly a self-enforcing mechanism to get me to make art at least once a month 😃

 

 

 

In my projects-notebook, I copied a design from a bullet-journaler & make mini tabbed sections within the notebook, like this

• cut a bit off the top of the pages, so the whole section shows the same title-space at the top
• cut a bit off the edge, leaving a tab I can label

This lets me group related notes with sub-sections, without having tabs stick out past the notebook edge (those always get mangled in my bag)

 

[jandrew]

I'll draw/waterbrush little images --- sometimes before I start writing (as below), or, more often, I'll just add random drawings and such when I need to clear/refresh my mind while writing.

[alexwi]

The few times I've opened my wife's copy of Jung's Red Book, I've drooled with envy, and I have a friend who, even though doesn't journal per se, has a few notebooks on which he writes things that come to mind and also draws (I marvel at those as well). Unfortunately I totally lack the talent or creativity to do this.

 

Could be because my journaling is very "business-like" in the sense that I'll open the notebook, write what's on my mind and close it because it's usually incredibly late and I must go to bed or, up until the pandemic, my train arrived at its destination.

 

Alex

[Cynickers]

Yes. I do bullet journaling. I’ve done everything from watercolors, to colored pencils, to just plain line drawings.

 

I do plan them in advance. Usually I’ll leave a page at the beginning with a few months of spread ideas. Then I’ll pick an idea if it works with how much time I have to execute it.

 

I’m most proud of my Little Prince spread I did for March where I made it look like the book was sitting on a table. Because I knew it would be super challenging, I put it off for several months before I got enough courage to tackle it.
 

 

[inkstainedruth]

No.  I do morning pages journaling and that's pretty much just solid writing.  There are rare occasions where I might make a doodle in the text to better describe what something looks like, but otherwise I don't do any sort of decorations.   And I have sketchbooks for that purpose....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth